95 comments:

Anonymous
said...

* MUST HAVE LAW FIRM EXPERIENCE AS AN ASSOCIATE.

Are they serious? Some associates who have been hired by BigLaw haven't had a chance to gain "experience" simply because of this poor economy....they have been asked to stay home....what kind of BS is this????

Laid off associates would be stupid to take this project. They should downgrade their lifestyle and live off their severance. Taking this gig would be a resume killer. Once in temp land, always in temp land.

With the world's most developed economies reeling under the incubus of what is already being called the Great Recession, India at the beginning of the year took stock and issued a revised estimate for GDP growth in the 2008-2009 fiscal year. Its projection came out at a healthy 7.1 percent.

It is striking that even amid all the doom and gloom assailing markets around the world, there is no fear of a recession in India. Even the pessimists are speaking only of lower positive growth.

This is quite a turnabout for an economy that for many years had crept along at what was derisively called the "Hindu rate of growth" - around 3 percent - while much of the rest of Asia shot ahead. For more than four decades after India's independence in 1947, the country suffered from the economics of nationalism, which equated political independence with economic self-sufficiency and, therefore, relegated the Indian economy to bureaucratic protectionism and stagnation.

But, since 1991, India has liberalized its economy and profited from the advantages of globalization. The country's tech-savvy information-technology pioneers, software engineers, and call-center operators have made the country an economic success story. India has managed to multiply its per capita income levels many times over since 1950, and has done so far faster in recent years than the United Kingdom or the United States did during and after their industrial revolutions.

Probably not self important and entitled associates who expect more money rather than contract attorneys who expect to be shat upon. It's not economics. It's status. You seem not to know the difference between the two. If it were economics, they would be hiring the temp with the highest potential for flight risk and/or sense that they deserve better than working at a doc review. So, I call your economics, and raise you status based psychology. They are asking for it because they can. and not because it makes economic sense. Unless you subscribe to the market fundamentalist theory that the market is always right because of some individual's action, then what they are doing is irrational in an economic sense. I don't care. I don't live down there. But, you can sell what you peddling to someone else.

Now that Covington's practices have been exposed, they are going to fill up their slave plantation with white faces. I can't wait to see these spoiled, self-entitled associates stacked up in the caserooms being bossed around by a paralegal, while making $33 an hour with no benefits. ROFL.

i want to go back and get a masters degree in something like history and then a PHD and teach at some small college somewhere. but, with many many thousands in student loan debt, that ships likely sailed...

8:11 - Don't you get it? You have to be a graduate of Harvard Law School to get a temp attorney job, or even work for free as a volunteer now. If you have student loans or a mortgage, just take a revolver and put it in your mouth.

If you're unemployed and you're really bored with nothing to do, one thing you might consider doing id either starting a letter writing campaign or some time of campaign to get your state legislators to reduce or wipe out the state and local income taxes on your unemployment checks.

I know it's not that much, but still, if you're living in New York State and particularly in New York City, it would seem that your unemployment checks are taxes at least 10%. While I am not in your situation, I do feel that it is unfair for you guys to have to fork over 10%, especially when other states do not tax unemployment benefits. even the federal govt threw a bone to the unemployed and offered to not tax the first 2500 bucks or so. Combined with the standard deductions and exemptions, the federal govt leaves at least your first 12000 or 13000 in unemployment benefits untouched.

Some of you guys might want to direct your energy at the state level and see if you can do something about the income taxes that I think they levy on your unemployment.

Good luck with that. I just finished doing my New York State taxes and I was appalled by the way in which they are bullying people into paying the bullshit internet sales tax. NYS never met a tax it didn't like.

Hate to break this to you folks thinking about breaking into academia but its even more competitive for Phds/professor positions than in law, even at small schools. Its ridiculously competitive. Best thing is sleep in the bed you made and become a specialist in some niche area of the law.

Why do you assume that people do not know there will be competition? Why would you assume that everyone is focused on avoiding competition? For the record, even specializing in a niche in law means facing competition. So, fucking what. That's just reality.

more fukitty fuk talk. New crazy time here. See the signs in the message. Last chance before it cones and ready off the razor as it shall be done. they will not know whynthose that are guilty for they are arrogant and will be disposed of as such.today is coming and it will last

Sad But True: Perverse Incentives in On-Shore Document Review 04:19:10 pm, Categories: Legal Process Outsourcing, In the News, Case Studies In the December, 2008 issue of the ABA Journal, the “flagship magazine of the American Bar Association,” there is a feature article about the anonymous life of a contract document review attorney in New York City:

Down in the Data MinesA tale of woe from the basement of legal practice.

The anonymous author describes the bleak work environment and perverse incentives of lawyers living the document review life in New York and, presumably, elsewhere.

Aside from the unpleasant work environment and seeming lack of respect accorded to these attorneys, in-house counsel should be keenly interested in the perverse incentives under which such lawyers work.

The anonymous author describes how he makes “$35 an hour for the first 40 hours and $52.50 for each hour thereafter.” The economic incentive, then, is to work more than 40 hours per week, despite the fact that the 41st hour (or 51st or 61st) is no more effective than the 40th hour. It is difficult to maintain consistent high quality when attorneys are reaching for more than 40 hours week after week just to make more money.

Beyond this striving for overtime, however, is an even worse incentive. As the author says:

“The reality is even worse: If I review 100 documents per hour (a very fast pace), I get paid the same hourly rate as if I review 30. More-over, each project consists of a finite number of documents; so the faster I work, the sooner I am out of a job and need to start hustling for the next project.

‘Don’t work us out of a job,’ a veteran contract attorney once derided me in private after I reviewed too many documents on the first day of a new project. And the firm is usually OK with this attitude; in my experience, speed and accuracy have always taken backstage to billable hours.”

There is a better way.

Pangea3 has moved to a unit pricing model for document review. We charge by the document, the page and the gigabyte. Aside from absolute lower costs for off-shore review what are the benefits?

1. Incentives Are Aligned: We work for speed and accuracy, not project longevity. Because we don’t charge overtime, it makes no economic sense for us to artificially extend projects. Because we don’t pay our people overtime, it makes no economic sense for them to work inefficiently or past the point where they are working effectively.

2. Fixed Costs: By charging by the document, page or gigabyte, our clients can easily know the cost of a review before the review commences.

If you haven’t tried off-shore review, give us a call and we’ll show you how going off-shore, where our incentives are aligned with yours, can lower costs and increase quality.

LPO's are out to deliberately bring down our profession for good and playing with fire. Here's why:

The concept of more focus on quality and productivity over billable hours, regardless of whether it is done at domestic firms or in India = destruction of billing rate justification gained by prestige names and degree = potential for dangerously low wages overall like in other industries. In other words, anybody who is interested in earning a respectable income practicing law ought to keep the spotlight away from quality or performance just a little bit. It is not in our interest to save the client money after all.

These crooks will not stop at anything to take away the high paying jobs that we're entitled to. They're using everything they can to offset the importance of having an American JD to perform this job and run this once highly regarded profession into a low class, low paying, third world shit profession. The best thing we can do is to use our legal expertise to ban them from cheapening our profession.

Solo practitioner with busy workers' compensation practice seeks ambitious attorney for full-time position. Ideal candidate would have a willingness to learn and to work hard, excellent credentials (top law school, good grades, law review, moot court all positives), and an interest in or experience with litigation, including client interviews, document reviews, depositions, motions work, and hearings.

In addition to legal duties, you will be assisting me. I am disabled and will require various personal services and help around the office and the home. Up to ten hours a month will count toward your billable hour targets.

To apply, please email a resume (including GPAs and salary history) and a writing sample. Current California Bar admission absolutely required - you will be in court!

Law is a gutter profession. There will be thousands of laid off biglaw pansies who thought they were upper class, but will soon learn the pleasures of doc review shitlaw.

Pedigree is a sham in the law. The law is simply undergoing a massive change, being driven by clients and bargain (cockroach infested) basements in the third world. The Giant sucking sound is the loss of jobs heading overseas.

Unemployment in California is now 10.5%. If you count those that aren't counted, it is probably closer to 17%. The only bright line in this whole thing is that Anonymous Contract Lawyer might lose her job.

The real sham here is 6:48, whose real name is Babu apparently. Mark my words, because when things are said and done, pedigree will be the saving grace to prevent law from being a total gutter profession. Clients wouldn't be willing to pay premium rates without it. If you don't understand that prestige and pedigree are the primary driving forces behind profit generating for the top firms in the world, then you're a) an idiot and b) in the wrong profession. Without prestige, nobody from top to bottom will ever make good money and the jobs will become so undesirable and worthless that we might as well dump the whole profession overseas to India where it belongs. Morons like 6:48 falsely think that changing the rules of the game will create a better situation for us.

Biglaw is indeed a sham. The fact that they have to use Indian sweatshops is just the latest brick in the wall to crumble. The law firm billing system is doomed.

Now that the greedy have commoditized doc review and other services, the water is beginning to trickle through the dam. Soon clients will demand reduced prices, commoditized services for all legal services.

Why can't we just do the whole thing in India? Where will biglaw draw the line?

The genie is out of the bottle now. Clients will continue to demand lower prices for all but the most specialized expertise.

Face it, the cheap Indian hucksters have broken through and begun the destruction of the vaunted biglaw hourly billing, the golden goose, if you will. Too bad, your greed has killed it.

"Dewey & Leboeuf didn’t unleash the Reaper on its “less productive partners” last week but, instead, decided to reduce the compensation of 66 its partners, some of whom have been practicing for 25 years. As reported by law.com, “[o]f the 66, the more fortunate are now taking home $25,000/month, the standard draw for partners. Lower-tier partners have faced more drastic reductions, with monthly draws of as little as $10,000, or an annual total of $120,000 — $40,000 less than the starting salary for a 2008 incoming first-year.” We just have to laugh as the broken business model of BigLaw continues to be exposed on a daily basis – and in new, more hysterical ways. It’s now gotten to the point that someone who graduated law school perhaps 10-25 years ago is worth less than a new law grad, i.e., someone with less experience than a court clerk. Maybe the partners who have been reduced in comp can quit, go back to law school and then reapply to these shit BigLaw firms as first years (that is, if these shit BigLaw firms were hiring)."

Two Skadden partners, Andrew Sandler and Benjamin Klubes, announced to thefirm’s associates that they’re jumping ship to form their own law firm,BuckleySandler.

Sandler assured associates that his exit was motivated by a desire forchange rather than concern about the firm’s stability. But some aren’t sosure and say this move has significant implications for Big Law.

Bob Guccione, Sr. sold Penthouse a long time ago to an investor in Miami, who ran it into the ground. Now the magazine has folded in the US, but they're still selling the trademark around the world to nightclubs, magazines, etc.

My father is a Nigerian document review attorney in New York City who ran a commodities trading business on the side, out of his Queens apartment. He met my mother, an attorney from Chandigharh, India, when she was visiting NYC in 1974. Now they both run an outsourcing agency together which plans to give all the doc review jobs in New York to Indian and Nigerian attorneys. They will put me in charge of the business in 2010. From then on, things will never be the same in the doc review world.

It was. But since there's no work, now we complain about how worthless a law degree is, and the A-listers are too afraid to post to this board.

I suspect things will start to improve shortly. Once the banks can value the toxic assests they'll start to lend. This will allow the firms to start the doc. reviews again. Then everybody can complain about the only getting 15 bucks for dinner instead of 20, or having to wait an extra 15 minutes for car service home.

This site is not dedicated to job searches or helpful information about how to get around the problems of starting a solo or getting out of the law. It's about what can and does go wrong followed by complaining about the problems of the status quo.

I can not think of one post here that's been focused on solutions. Can you name one? I wish there was a site like that, but there's not. If there is, can someone point me in that direction?

I don't think the credit markets is forthcomging. The Geithner plan addresses assets, but not the underlying problem- the banks are using the government money to create the illusion of savings on their balance sheets due the liabilities they owe.

I think you're a little paranoid. The market rate seems to be dropping. There was the hudson post for patent attorneys with substanative experience for 33, so this stuff seems like it's in line with the prevailing market rate.

The solution is to find a temporary job until the legal market recovers. Try the local paper or go to the unemployment office. There's also the Census. You could also try teaching English abroad. You can slso register with the other non-legal temp agencies. Oh yeah, keep sending your resume to any legal jobs or any other field for which you qualify. Try career fairs also. The IT sector seems to be hiring.

There are jobs available, but they're not as cushy or as highly paid as doc. review. The legal market is in meltdown at the moment, so you might want to try some alternatives.

Can you imagine how stupid and greedy people would have to be to hire a "Virtual Corporate Attorney" in India to advise their company on legal matters? Someone who, by definition, has no knowledge of US law, and has to self-train from the ground up in both the law and the culture of another company?

To hire someone like this, and to take on that huge risk, just to save a few bucks, is beyond dumb. It's preposterous.

The recruiters are not focusing on placing contract attorneys, they are placing paralegals now. See, right now the market for contract attorneys is shit and they cannot make money from shit! When the time comes where they can turn a significant profit from placing us, they will start placing again.

11:36pm is working under the assumption that the legal market will fully recover and go back to the same old again. Just like how mortgage lenders and credit rating agencies worked under the assumption that the housing market can't go down again.

This site is not dedicated to job searches or helpful information about how to get around the problems of starting a solo or getting out of the law. It's about what can and does go wrong followed by complaining about the problems of the status quo.

I can not think of one post here that's been focused on solutions. Can you name one? I wish there was a site like that, but there's not. If there is, can someone point me in that direction?